Well, dear readers, I did another three-mile jog yesterday, this one in mid-afternoon. Remember how surprised I was that the first jog wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be? Well, the second jog was rather horrifyingly difficult but I got through it – barely. But here are some things I learned whilst doing these two jogs. About six times there were people walking in my direction who purposely seemed to veer toward me as if they were going to deck me. Why would they veer like that? Are they just morons? From the first evening jog I learned that at nine-thirty at night every fast food restaurant I passed – In ‘n’ Out, Taco Bell, and McDonald’s, all had huge lines of cars in the drive-up lane. Now, you know these people all ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner and yet there they are at nine-thirty at night at these fast food jernts buying tons of food to stuff their faces with. And these people seemingly don’t gain weight from this. I gain weight if I LOOK at food. I just don’t get it. I understand youthful metabolism, but seriously, these people are ingesting probably 4,000 calories a day. Another thing I learned whilst jogging: Most people cannot look up from their phones and therefore don’t see where they’re going, don’t see that they’re crossing on a red light, don’t care – it’s like they cannot not look at their phones every second of every day save for when they’re asleep and I firmly believe that some of these nitwits actually get up during the sleep hours to see who’s texted them or put up a new photo on Instagram. I think I’m probably one of the few people who almost never look at the phone. I don’t call people very often and certainly not from the car – only occasionally and only if I have something important to impart. I don’t text very much, and the only things I tend to post on Instagram are photos of our releases. Speaking of our releases, I’m pleased to announce our two latest releases, one soundtrack, one musical theatre-related album.
The soundtrack has always been a favorite of mine ever since I bought the RCA LP back in 1962 when the film was released (as most know, my favorite movie year). I loved not only the music but the incredible Saul Bass cover. I also loved the movie itself – Otto Preminger’s Advise and Consent. The score was by first time film composer Jerry Fielding and boy did he show his stuff right away. It’s really masterful. Preminger was incredible at choosing the most interesting composers for his films, frequently up-and-comers or composers who were, for whatever reasons, just not that well known. There as a Spanish CD release, but that was taken from a sub-master generations away from the original album master – so it sounded shrill to me and not pleasant. For our release, we had the first-generation album masters and they sounded great, and then our mastering guy put his magic sauce on them and they sound even better. There was a bit of tape hiss, which we decided to leave alone because to remove it removes the SOUND of the original tapes and some of the high end. I’d always prefer a little hiss to any loss of frequency to try and hide it. When I heard our master, I was thrilled, and Sony, who licensed it to us, also thought it sounded great. I cannot recommend this highly enough – it’s short, but it’s cherce. Here’s the cover.
Our second release is Ben Bagley’s Alan Jay Lerner Revisited, all spruced up and sounding so much better now. Ben Bagley may have been a man of interesting talents, but sound, mixing, and mastering weren’t among them. This is going to be the first of many Bagley Revisited reissues that we’re going to do the right way – nice packaging, new liner notes, and much improved sound. Someone else has done a few already, but I warn you that those are not remastered at all – they are, in fact, simple clones of the old albums put on CD-R and have no real packaging. I respect the albums too much and Bagley deserves to have his legacy respected and honored. In fact, way back when I issued The Grass Harp on Varese Sarabande, we spoke and he so wanted me to distribute his entire catalogue and treat it the right way. I couldn’t back then, but I’m happy to do so now. We have at least fifteen more of these and probably more beyond that. This album was one of his best, with nice arrangements by Norman Paris (husband to Dorothy Loudon, who appears on the album) – and a particularly delightful cast of players. Here’s the cover, which, as all these will, features the art of Harvey Schmidt.
Otherwise yesterday just sort of ambled along, neither here nor there. I only got close to seven hours of sleep, then the helper came by and got the invoices for The Man With Bogart’s Face and Demi-Dozen, then went and picked up the CDs and shipped most of the orders. The rest will go out today. Then I ate my first Freshly meal – the meatloaf, which I very much enjoy – 400 calories. Then I picked up some packages but no important envelope, which infuriated me. Then I came back home, had some telephonic calls, and then did the three-mile jog.
After that, I did some work at the piano, then the computer. I had an idea for the one song that was left (aside from the finale), which involved taking an existing melody that I’m really fond of and adjusting its original lyric (which was written for a very specific event) so it worked for this show. I’m not sure if I think it’s right, but the new lyric is fun and the tune is super-catchy. We’ll see if we feel it’s right or not. Beyond that, I have to wait until the script has been revised with all the numbers placed with their set-ups and anything repetitious in the book taken out (repetitious in terms of saying things that are now said in song) – only then will I know if we need something else.
I was very tired after the jog and not really in the mood to watch anything, so I listened to some CDs, ate my second Freshly meal – pulled pork and some sort of thing that came with it – 360 calories – got everything ready to announce, and that was that.
Today I will hopefully print out a LOT of orders. I really need these two titles to do well, and I mean WELL. I think she of the Evil Eye may be coming and if so I’ll do a morning jog if my legs allow such a thing. Then I’ll hopefully pick up packages and the important envelope, do some banking, maybe eat a light breakfast while killing time, in which case I’ll only do one Freshly meal in the evening, one with no more than 500 calories – with the jog I am hovering right at 1000 calories when you factor in my early evening sweet for the sweet tooth or teeth. I will absolutely find our final gal or I will make the decision to go without the final gal, and then I have a few other things to do before relaxing.
The weekend is unknown to me other than making a show order and writing commentary, then next week I have a lot of stuff going on.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, hopefully print out a LOT of orders, hopefully pick up packages and an important envelope, bank, eat, find or not find our final gal, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, lots of upcoming projects. Blu-ray, more Outer Limits and a lot of movies. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have shared the things I learned while jogging.